Desolate

We put the past behind us for a reason, but when someone meddles in our memories they may get more then expected.

What harm could it do? Harry thought, gazing questioningly at the pensive infront of him. Snape's pensive in Snape's office that Harry had broken into in the night to lay a prank for his most hated professor.

Harry grinned wickedly, touching the silvery surface and feeling himself falling into Snape's memory. He landed with a thud on the ground beside an oak tree on the outskirts of the forbidden forest. He looked around and saw the young, skrawny body of a teenage Snape sat under the oak tree with his long skinny arms wrapped around his legs protectively pulled close to his chest.

He heard the crack of a twig and turned around at the same time Snape looked up and saw the dark figure of Sirius Black moving towards them in the starry black night. Sirius looked solemn as he stopped only a meter away from where Snape now stood under the tree.

"Go away." Snape whispered harshly, moving to get away from him but Sirius was quicker, jumping forward and grabbing the younger wizards arm.

"Not until you listen to me." Sirius said, almost pleading with a look on his face that Harry had never seen before. Snape looked at him, but there was no venom or loathing in his expression, only pain and suffering and his eyes were watered slightly, "I should've known better then to have ever trusted you." He whispered, his voice breaking painfully almost like he was berating himself with his words, "I should've known better."

Sirius shook his head, "I'm sorry Severus. I never deserved the chances you gave me and I took it all for granted. I guess I just didn't want to see what I was really doing to you and brushed it all off."

Chances? Harry thought carefully over his words then remembered, Wait. Did Sirius just call Snape by his first name?

Snape looked up at him, his cheeks now stained with tears, looking as if he was too weak to fight back, "Please Sirius. I can't anymore. The screaming won't go away and it hurts." Snape begged, almost cried. He laid his head gently on Sirius' shoulder when the animagus pulled him into his arms in a soft embrace.

"I'm so sorry Sev." Sirius whispered his voice soothing and soft like a mother would speak to her new born child, "I'm so sorry."

Snape looked up at Sirius, his arms wrapped around his too skinny waist like he was trying to protect his exposed body. "Please Siri, make it stop hurting." He begged, his cries where pain filled and held a hint of loss in them.

Harry mulled over the name Siri in his head that Snape had used. Since when did Snape even have a nickname for his godfather? Sirius closed his eyes tight, stopping himself from shedding a tear at the knowledge that he'd finally done what he'd set out to do. He'd broken Severus Snape in the worst possible way. But he hadn't planned on falling for him during the process. "I don't know how to Sev." he said back in his soothing voice.

"Please don't leave me again." Severus begged, unwrapping his arms and clutching to the front of Sirius's robes. "I'll stop fighting, I swear I'll be good. Just please don't leave me on my own."

Sirius stiffened slightly and froze. He reread all of Severus' words over and over, not having the chance to speak before Snape begged again, "Please master, please don't leave. I'll be good, I promise." He sobbed, his face buried in the robes as his hands held tighter to the fabric. Sirius let a tear roll down his cheek. "Shhh." he tried to sooth him lifting the fragile boy into his arms and sitting under the tree on the spot Snape had just occupied and resting the shaking body of his old enemy on his lap, gently rocking him back and forth. "Oh Sev. What have I done?"

Severus only misheard the last few words, believing he was in trouble and panicking again when his mind refused to allow him to know what he'd done wrong. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He cried over and over again, begging Sirius not to be mad at him, knowing he would be punished but he was more scared of losing Sirius at that moment. He never had anyone else. He knew that the way Sirius would get angry and hit him sometimes meant that he wasn't going to stop no matter how many times he had begged him too.

His father had abused him as a child, and he'd been forced to watch the murder of his mother at his fathers hands when he was 12 years old and living with the knowledge that his mother was rotting in the basement for three more years until his father died of alcohol poisoning. Sirius had started being civil to him after the whomping willow incident, and when they had been put on detention together, Sirius for the willow and Severus for breaking curfew, Sirius had seemed to become very friendly towards him. He was kind and helpful and when Sirius first kissed him, Severus lost himself inside his dark pit again.

He allowed Sirius what he wanted, not knowing what else to do. He'd always been taught that fighting back led to severe punishment and he didn't want to know what Sirius considered as severe after the willow. So he lay there on his stomach, listening to the sound of his tear chocked breathing while Sirius took him in the classroom they were supposed to be cleaning.

When he had finished, Sirius had left the room as quickly as possible, leaving Snape to curl himself into a ball and cry silently at the pain in his back, ass and legs. Professor Binns had found him when he floated through the wall. He tutted and shook his head, staring intently at the freshly beaten and raped 16 year old in his classroom. Severus apologized, his mind had already shut down trying to protect him from the realization of what had just happened. But it didn't stop Sirius, after a week, it was a common occurrence. Every few days he was given new scars and more pain, barely even able to move at all, Severus had become a shell. Hollow.

He didn't know what to do. He couldn't protect himself because he didn't know how. He was scared, the same fear that filled him when his father was alive was now there because of Sirius. But Severus attached himself to him. He laid his head on Sirius' knees when Sirius amused himself by making him sit at his feet like a pet. He did everything Sirius told him to, even eating and drinking only when Sirius allowed it.

He had become so thin that his ribs stuck out of his scarred chest, he had lost all of the weight he'd gained since his father died. Sirius' head suddenly shot up and stared right in Harry's direction, Harry knew he couldn't see him but he also knew that he was as white as a sheet and that there was the sound of voices behind him that were getting closer. Sirius quickly moved Snape off his lap and sat him in the shadows beside the oak tree. Snape clutched at him, "No…no…please…" he cried, his skeleton form shaking in the moonlight. Sirius grabbed his wrists and shoved him off, "Shut up Severus, someone's coming. I can't let anyone see me with you."

Sirius threw Snape's arms away from him and Snape pulled them close to himself, curling up again and laying on the ground against the oak. His cries were broken and heart shattering, he was choking on his own breath and his lungs were burning but the pain in his heart and the screaming in his head was much worse.

His whispers made him sound like he was dying but the words were too quiet for anyone else to hear. Sirius quickly hid behind another tree and waited for the teachers roaming the grounds to get as far as the Qudditch pitch so no one would find them there before he came back out. Sirius put his hand on Snape's shoulder and clutched it tightly, even after he had made the realization of what he'd done only a few minutes ago, he couldn't stop the anger and hate that seeped through, "Stop crying!" he spat out angrily. Severus heard the anger in his voice and covered his head, biting his lip hard to stop most of the crying but the tears still blinded him.

Sirius shook his head and grit his teeth, "I'm going to bed, and when I tell you to do something, you do it." He said, grabbing Severus' chin tightly, sure enough there would be finger print bruises there in the morning, and shoved his head back so hard that it cracked against the tree trunk. Sirius quickly stood and strode back to the castle in the dark.

Severus wrapped his arms around his head and sobbed into the ground, the smell of blood dangling in the air from the back of his head. He wouldn't sleep tonight incase that blow caused a concussion so he settled for breathing in and out slowly. Severus pushed himself into a sitting position, leaning heavily on the tree while he continued to cry and shake. "I want…to…die, please!" he croaked out, staring at the earth below him.

Those were the last words Harry heard before the memory ended.

A/N: Well, let me know what you guys think. I don't know whether to continue with this story or leave it as a stand-alone chapter so that will depend on how many of you want to see this expanded.

Thank you for reading and please review